I’ve awoken out of some strange hibernation since I’ve been back home. I kind of feel like, oh yeah, this is who I am…some strange needlecraft hibernation. This may be the most vulnerable city in the U.S., but I feel like I know more than ever that it is worth it.
I have gone back to work part-time waiting tables at Venezia’s, a different location as the mid-city one is under renovation and should be up and going at the end of the summer. It is bringing in a nice little second income for an extra 15 hours worth of work per week. It’s a fairly social experience for me as well. Venezia people have been my second family and largely what put me through college, I have been knowing them for at least 8 years. (”have been knowing” is a New Orleans verb tense.)
Friday evening I met my friend Heather at the house where I’m staying. We went out and got three pounds of boiled (also pronounced “burled”) crawfish and fried shrimp po-boys from Smitty’s, a little hole in the wall- which are always the best. Those of you who knew my aversion to sea food growing up would be impressed to know that I can tear through some burled crawfish. You rip them in half, suck the seasoned water from the head, and then pop out the meat from the tail and eat it. Delicious!! Heather brought a couple really good bottles of wine as she works at a wine cellar- fabulous. It’s so good to hang out with good girlfriends. I really missed that.
Saturday morning, I met a friend to go see her house in Chalmette, or what was her house as she had just found it had been bulldozed. Can you imagine how strange it must be to stare at an empty lot where your life used to take place less than a year ago? Later that day she got cable installed, and basic services are pretty exciting here.
Today, my friend Molly and I got together for lunch. She is four and a half months pregnant with her second baby. We are quite excited. Her three year old Fiona is the child that appears in the blog quite often. From being around Fiona I’ve learned one thing about kids: two year olds-not fun, three year olds-very fun. Fiona cracks me up. Her imagination is so incredible, you can’t trust anything she says. She is in a fairy land, and it seems to be a pretty fun place.
I think ” advocacy” is the biggest word I have on my mind right now. The levees are currently not fixed to pre-Katrina strength. Obviously, quite a number of things are on the to-do list here. There are a lot of dollars coming into the state, and quite a few that were approved in Congress just last week. Louisiana has all kinds of hurdles to jump right now, and I think it is going to be imperative for the citizens to keep a close watch on the dollars coming in and be organized to make our representatives accountable for how those dollars are spent.
To be perfectly honest, we are all just a little bit crazy right now. I think the people in my immediate little circle are doing great. We all have little areas, though, where we are having a hard time. I went out shopping the other day with some extra money from taking a bartending shift and was excited to find out that size 8 is roomy on me. 50 lbs in about 8 months is a crap-load of weight to lose. That’s how much lighter I am. It’s strange, though, to have that kind of weight loss without trying for it. I feel like I could put it back on at any time without any control over it. At the same time, I’m super hot!
We actually may be having a real true to form Katrina live experience, in that my friend Stephanie called yesterday and said she had a FEMA trailer delivered that she needed months ago, but no longer needs and Chris and I are welcome to stay in it so that we don’t have to leave Maya (the cat) in Alabama for an extended period of time. So, we are going to be moving into a FEMA trailer in a flooded out part of the city and quite possibly renting a place that is getting renovated whenever it is ready.
The idea of leaving rural poverty behind and now living in a trailer is quite hilarious to me. I’ve been hollering about wanting a Fema trailer for months. Now I pretty much have one.
As far as I know, Chris should be coming down in about a week with the essentials. His equipment, kitchen stuff, etc. The people I am staying with are in Japan, so I’m getting some me time-hence the big blog entry. Anyhoo, I have started keeping a journal. Gary made the suggestion, and I thought it was a good idea. Therapeutic, too. I’ll leave you with Chris Rose’s ending word to his column this weekend-and this is about as much wisdom as I can muster-”I went with the foot-long fried oyster, melted havarti and bacon po-boy, drenched in mayo and Crystal Hot Sauce. A wondrous spactacle to behold. A truly ludicrous thing to eat. Such a New Orleans thing.”
